Detours
by kenzier
Summary: A series of unrelated 'drabbles' Spike. Faye. SxF. WIP.
1. Mourning

**Detours: Mourning  
**by kenzier

* * *

The night Spike died, Faye dreamt about going to the carnival as a child.

She was small and it all seemed so surreal and magical. The speed, the colors, the light. It was scary and a bit overwhelming, but she had fun anyway. Her father bought her a balloon as they were leaving, but she accidentally let go and it flew away. She remembered the unaturally deep grief she felt watching it grow smaller and smaller and disappear. She also remembered the hysterical tears and sobs that followed. She knew now she should have held on tigher.

When she woke the next day to an empty ship, Faye felt the grief of her lost balloon grow anew.


	2. A Warm Place With No Memory

**Detours: A Warm Place With No Memory  
**by kenzier

* * *

The skin on Faye's face and back and chest was shiny. It looked warm, but it was slowly cooling. He didn't understand how she could stand to be wrapped in a yarn knit blanket when the sheet alone was sticking to his legs and stomach. So was her skin. The hand that rested under her cheek felt like it had been glued to his belly. 

She looked contemplative with half-lidded eyes and silent breathing. Still, he knew she wasn't sad. Or at least he couldn't imagine her being sad while he looked at her bare thighs.

Spike smiled around his cigarette. People often wanted to know what he thought about. Few people could read him. He was a closed book. He liked it that way. But anyone that _could_ read him would know that this night would be all he thought about tomorrow. And he hoped Faye knew.

* * *

The title comes from _The Shawshank Redemption_. I was reminded of it when I compared Spike to a closed book. I've changed the genre of Detours from angst to general. I write drabbles on whims, so there's no telling what I'm going to expell. Even the 'angst' parameter was too specfic for my tastes. 


	3. A Night Like This

**Detours: A Night Like This  
**by kenzier

* * *

Spike sat and smoked and looked at Faye's hair all pulled back in a ponytail. They were dizzy and drunk, sitting on the curb. Spike had taken to sleeping all day and staying up all night. Now he lived only at night. And no bars were open at 3 a.m. So they found a liquor store and bought a bottle to share. And cigarettes and candy too. 

It was summer, hot, and they alone sat on the steamy pavement and the orange light showered down on them from the street lamp. Spike tried to focus on something outside this scene, but all the roads curved down and away from them, into the blue and black night. A high-frequency sound rang in his ear and a white light burst inside his head. His temple ached and he had keep his left eye screwed shut to ease the pain.

"Fuuuuuck," he groaned, dropping his head to his hand.

Faye looked at him then, but her eyes were colorless and blank and she said nothing as she bit down on her gummy worm, tugging at the other end until it broke in two.

Then he reached out without looking and clamped his hand on her shoulder and felt the white linen of her shirt press into her damp skin. His hand felt large and heavy and he scooted over, pressed his forehead to the back of it, and breathed down Faye's arm.

"Spike---"

"Christ, just enjoy it, okay?"

She sighed, indignant, and took another drink.

* * *

I was channeling dear old Ernest for much of the style. The title comes from the song of the same name by The Cure. Read and review, please. 


	4. You Would Kill For This

**Detours: You Would Kill For This  
**by kenzier

* * *

The blanket was woven. It was a soft, soft blue made of soft, soft yarn. It had been stretched and worn, and made for a terrible curtain once. Never had it hid her from the light of the bright summer mornings. It barely hid her now as he laid beneath it. 

Last summer, it hung in her room. This summer, it covered her cooled flesh.

Last summer, Spike had been dead to the world. This summer, he slept like the dead next to her and her blanket.

Last summer, she would have died to have him be here with her this way. This summer, that had not changed at all.

* * *

I'm baaaack. I was listening to "Existentialism on Prom Night" by Straylight Run while I wrote this.


	5. The Promise

**Detours: The Promise  
**by kenzier

* * *

"I promise never to promise anything at all." 

These were the only words Spike ever said that acknowledged their relationship. She'd been standing over him--one hip jutting viciously to the side--as he lazily napped on the sofa where they'd first kissed a few nights before. Her expression instantly became one of poisonous indignation, jaw dramatically locked open to compliment a harshly furrowed brow. He shrugged then, an rolled away from her, consenting only to listen to her boots slap and punish the metal floor as she stomped away.

She'd hated him then. She'd wanted to punch him into the spaces between the cushions until he became one with the closest thing he'd ever have to a soul mate. He appreciated that couch so much more than he ever would her.

Later, however, she came to find that there we advantages to never making promises. When she pushed him off her bed one evening after he started to fall asleep, she pointed out that she'd never promised that he could stay the night. He grimaced in hateful disbelief, and she felt totally pleased with her maneuver of revenge as she watched him angrily snatch up his clothes, glaring at her through tiny slits, and storm out. Turnabout was fair play, after all.

But games never remained games with people like Spike and Faye. After a particularly fruitless day at the casino, a distraught Faye garnered no sympathy from her bedmate. "I never promised to listen to your whining," he said coldly, never averting his eyes from the carton of ice cream he held. She looked at him then--as he leaned against the kitchen counter nonchalantly, spooning ice cream into his mouth, seemingly unaware of her existence--and knew that he'd never really care. She swallowed tears, and nodded to herself. When he looked up to see her painful resignation, he knew it was over.

Days went by, and they did not speak. Then days turned into weeks. He could not help but feel that their time had been cut far too short. He could not say anything to her at all, for all the things left unfinished silenced his every remark. She did not sleep at night, but would simply lie awake with her hand on her stomach; it was where he used to lay it when she finally let him stay.

At long last, he spoke up over coffee--the only time they shared alone before the others arose. She snapped her head up the moment the apology left his mouth. His eyes were sad with longing, and she suddenly let go of the tears she'd been abiding.

"It'll be different this time. I promise."

* * *

I think this is one of my favorite pieces thus far. It has a lot of heart. 


	6. The Heart of the Matter

**Detours: The Heart of the Matter  
**by kenzier

* * *

No death was involved. They were not forced apart by violence or circumstance or any other extreme. One would believe that it would be easier without external forces. 

But it wasn't.

They lived under the same hull. Their rooms were mere meters apart, but it could have very well been light years. The most painful distance was the one felt in the heart.

No one from their pasts came to wreak havoc anymore. Still, they could not seem to reconcile the present. Glances spoke louder than gunshots. Sentences were harder to interpret than the movements of a battle partner. Hearts ached more than empty stomachs.

It was so much more common than before, yet it was the most torturous kind of conflict. The heart. The mind.

Faye would never have begged in the face of any adversary, but she would fall to her knees and crawl on the floor if she thought it would mean anything at all to Spike.

Spike never had trouble approaching even the most formidable enemy, but his feet stuttered and he paced for miles before he managed to face Faye.

The labyrinth of emotion grew larger and larger with each passing day, farther obscuring its origin from its two lonely travellers.

She sat on the yellow chair, filing her nails. He sat on the yellow couch, polishing his gun. The room was like a vacuum.

She slammed her nail file down on the table. He jerked.

"Are you just gonna sit there?", she asked incredulously.

"What else would I do?", he drawled with mock confusion.

"Goddamnit, Spike. For once, can you drop the act and stop pretending?"

He leaned back on the couch and rolled his eyes with grudging compliance. "Fine. Go ahead."

* * *

In other countries, people give their friends gifts on their birthdays. Here's my gift to you all. 


	7. Hands

**Detours: Hands  
**by kenzier

* * *

Spike had very large hands. 

He liked to pretend he didn't notice. In fact, Spike had perfected the art of feigning ignorance. He'd learned to lull his head to the side and let his eyes lose focus. He'd learned to arch his brow somewhat quizzically when someone was trying to get his attention, but never high enough to shake away the air of utter indifference he seemed to always carry. He'd learned to hunch slightly and stroll, his large hands pushed loosely into his pockets. And to whistle. Whistling was key. It told others that he never carried any burden too heavy to prevent him from indulging in such a mindless, carefree behavior.

But he noticed that his hands were large. Just as he had noticed that Faye's were small.

They were small in a way that was able to give her a touch of innocence and frailness. Her fingers were thinner than a lot of women's. He wondered if maybe she had practiced piano as a child.

One evening during their second circle of the cosmos, after the visit to Callisto which had divided everyone so, he indulged in one of her whimsical demands, and allowed her to press her hand against his. Hand against hand, mirroring each other, she looked at their splayed fingers thoughtfully. He found he could could easily bend the top part of each finger over hers. She commented with distaste on his double-jointedness, and turned away, dropping her hand with no resolution to the exercise. He shrugged and chalked her actions up to curiosity.

Still, he noticed instantly how his hand buzzed from the abrupt loss of contact, a ghost of the intimate touch hanging around it for days.

* * *

I wanted to write something from Spike's point of view, because I rarely give myself that opportunity, and he is my favorite half of the pair, admittedly.  



End file.
